Saturday, July 2, 2016

Sin, Darkness, Death?

1.There are obstacles lying between God and
us. These comprise what we can call, in a lump sum, “Sin, Darkness, and Death”.
God created all things. Human beings are created in God’s own image. God found
his creation to be “very good” (Gen 1/31).

2.The human person is image of God. This has
been distorted as a result of sin. But this has never been deleted.

3.We are called to improve levels the
conditions of human life. We are to work for the happiness of persons, promote
justice and peace, foster a love that is inclusive of all. This is how we are
as image of God.

4.But we can see the human condition of
wretchedness. There is evil and suffering which are a universalexperience.
All humanity experiences evil and suffering. Our faith demands that we make a
coherent and honest assessment of the human condition.

5.Our faith assesses that evil appearsas being always present. Evil has always been with us and itprecedes our responsibilities. It
looks as if there are “powers” present before we do anything. These powers of
evil show to be external to any of our personal awareness, choice and action.

6.But we also experience evil and suffering
that have theirsource in our
human heart. We humans are also
responsible.We have our selfish reflexes. We have cravings for
inordinate pleasure and power. In many ways we participate in evil. In mass we
pray, “that I have sinned in what I have done and in what I have failed to do”.
Often we participate in evil by intentionally failing to do good.

7.We human beings are alienated from God
because of sin. Yes we are creatures and not the Creator. God moves in love
towards us, sinful humans, and this is presupposed in our belief in salvation.

8.We experience break up of relationships,
inadequacies and frustrations in our lives. We cannot deny how we also are responsible.
Still we must note as objectively as possible those aspects of our lives that
destroy us and we are not directly responsible for them. Those aspects are beyond
our control and the also speak of our need for salvation. Just think of the natural
catastrophes, illness, physical and mental suffering. These tell us that evil
is about what we are responsible for and
what we are not responsible for.

9.Traditional teaching says that death
itself, and all the “bad things” around us, has been understood as a result of
sin, “the mystery of iniquity”. (see 2 Thes 2/7).

10.In a more personal level we can talk of difficulties
in balancing our own personalities. At time each of us can be…well….an “a.h.”
We have difficulties in living well and harmoniously with others. We know of
the presence of violence around us and perhaps seeds of violence are sprouting
within us.

11.And then we need to recognize how we have
been harming and destroying our environment. Some scientists say that we are in
a point of really falling apart ecologically.

12.We can understand why there are people who
are skeptical about life and they think that, really, life is absurd and
without sense.

13.Picture the Apostles with their very deep
anguishes in life. Then they see Jesus alive again! Imagine how that presence
of Christ would resolve all the questions of sin and evil.